WALT 

HITMAN 








DAYS WITH THE POETS 



THE OPEN ROAD. 

Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road, 
Healthy, free, the world before me, 
The long brown path before me, leading wherever 
I choose. 

{Song of the Open Road). 



A DAY WITH 
WALT 
Vv^HITMAN 

BY MAURICE CLARE 




KEW ^ORK 

HODDER & STOUGHTQN 



In the same Series. 

Tennyson. 

Wordsworth 

Browning. 

Hums. 

Byron. 

Keats. 

E. B. Browning. 

Whittier. 

Rossetti. 

Shelley. 

Longfellow. 

ScoU. 

Coleridge. 

Morris. 







4 DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 




BOUT six o'clock on a mid- 
summer morning in 1877, a 
tall old man awoke, and was 
out of bed next moment, — but 
he moved with a certain slow 
leisureliness, as one who will 
not be hurried. The reason of this deliberate 
movement was obvious, — he had to drag a 
paralysed leg, which was only gradually re- 
covering its ability and would always be slightly 
lame. Seen more closely, he was not by any 
means so old as at first sight one might imagine. 
His snow-white hair and almost-white grey 
beard indicated some eighty years : but he was 
vigorous, erect and rosy : his clear grey-blue 
eyes were bright with a *' wild-hawk look," — 
his face was firm and without a line. An air of 
splendid vital force, despite his infirmity, was 
diffused from his whole person, and defied the 
fact of his actual age, which was two years 
short of sixty. 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

Dressing with the same large, leisurely 
gestures as characterized him in everything, 
Walt Whitman was presently attired in his 
invariable suit of grey : and by the time the 
clock touched half-past seven, he was 
seated in the verandah, comfortably inhaling 
the sweet, fresh morning air, and quite 
ready for his simple breakfast. 

In this old farmhouse, in the New Jersey 
hamlet of White Horse, Walt Whitman had 
been long an inmate. He was recovering 
by almost imperceptible degrees from the 
breakdown induced by over-strain, mental and 
physical, which had culminated in intermittent 
paralytic seizures for the last eight years, 
and had left his robust physique a mere wreck 
of its former magnificence. Here, in the 
absolute peace and seclusion of the little 
wooden house, with its few fields and fruit- 
trees, he lived in lovable companionship with 
the farmer-folk, man, wife and sons : and here, 
the level, faintly undulated country, ** neither 
attractive nor unattractive," supplied all the 
needs of his strenuous nature and healed him 
with its calm, curative influences. He steeped 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

himself, month by month, season after season, 
in '* primitive solitudes, winding stream, recluse 
and woody banks, sweet-feeding springs and all 
the charms that birds, grass, wild-flowers, 
rabbits and squirrels, old oaks, walnut-trees, 
etc., can bring." Simple fare, these charms 
might seem to a townsman : to the * * good grey 
poet " they were not only sufficient but inex- 
haustible. Dearly as he loved the ** swarming 
and tumultuous '' life of cities, the tops of Broad- 
way omnibuses, the Brooklyn ferry-boats, the 
eternal panorama of the multitude, his true 
delight was in the vast expanses, the illimitable 
spaces, the very earth from which, Antaeus-like, 
he drew his vital strength. Out here, in the 
country solitudes, alone could he observe 
how — in a way undreamed of by the street- 
dweller, — 

Ever upon this stage 
Is acted God's calm annual drama. 
Gorgeous processions, songs of birds. 
Sunrise that fullest feeds and freshens most 

the soul. 
The heaving sea, the waves upon the shore, 

the musical, strong waves, 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

The woods, the stalwart trees, the slender, 

tapering trees. 
The lilliput countless armies of the grass. 

{The Return of the Heroes.) 

It may be doubted whether any other 
poet who has been inspired by outdoor Nature, 
has approximated so closely as Whitman to the 
** shows of all variety," which nature presents, — 
from the infinite gradations of microscopic 
detail, to the enormous range and sweep of 
dim vastitudes. His poetry has a huge 
elemental quality, akin to that of winds and 
clouds and seas. **To speak with the perfect 
rectitude and insouciance of the movements of 
animals, and the unimpeachableness of the 
sentiment of trees in the woods and grass by 
the roadside," — this was the standard he had 
set himself : and, in pursuance of this ideal, 
he had given his first and most typically 
unconventional volume the title * * Leaves of 
Grass." No name could better convey and 
sum up his meaning in art, — a commixture of 
the minute and the universal, the simple and the 
inexplicable, the particular and the all-pervad- 
ing, — the commonplace which is also the 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

miracle : for to Whitman leaves of grass were 
this and more. **To me," he declared, **as I 
lean and loaf at my ease, observing a spear of 
summer grass," 

Every hour of the light and dark is a 

miracle — 
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle, 

the grass-blades no less so than the ** gentle 
soft-born measureless light." And, avowedly, 
from these external expressions of nature he 
derived all power of song — 

I hear you whispering there, O stars 

of heaven — 
O suns — O grass of graves — O perpetual 

transfers and promotions, — 
If you do not say anything, how can I say 

anything ? 

Thus he had arrived at declaring, with 
august arrogance : * * Let others finish specimens 
— I never finish specimens : I shower them by 
exhaustless laws as Nature does, fresh and 
modern continually." 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

Nor are you to suppose that this was a 
late development of nature-worship in a man 
suddenly confronted with teeming glories and 
wonderments. All through his life he had 
been soaking himself in the mysterious love- 
liness of the world around. ** Even as a boy," 
he wrote, ** I had the fancy, the wish, to write 
a poem about the seashore — that suggesting 
dividing line, contact, junction, the solid marry- 
ing the liquid — that curious, lurking something 
(as doubtless every objective form finally 
becomes to the subjective spirit) which means 
far more than its mere first sight, grand as that 

is I felt that I must one day write a 

book expressing this liquid, mystic theme. 

Afterward it came to me that instead 

of any special lyrical or epical or literary 
attempt, the seashore should be an invisible 
influence, a pervading gauge and tally for me in 
my composition." Even as a child, upon the 
desolate beaches of Long Island, he had, 
** leaving his bed, wandered alone, bare- 
headed, barefoot," over the sterile sands and 
the fields beyond, and explored the secret 
sources of tragedy that are hidden at the 
roots of love. 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

Once Paumanok, 

When the snows had melted — when the 
lilac-scent was in the air and Fifth- 
month grass was growing, 

Up this sea-shore, in some briers. 

Two guests from Alabama — two together, 

And their nest, and four light-green eggs, 
spotted with brown. 

And every day the he-bird to and fro near 
at hand. 

And every day the she-bird crouch'd on 
her nest, silent, with bright eyes. 

And every day I, a curious boy, never too 
close, never disturbing them. 

Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating. 



Till of a sudden, 

May-be kill'd, unknown to her mate. 

One forenoon the she-bird crouch'd not on 

the nest. 
Nor return'd that afternoon, nor the next. 
Nor ever appear'd again. 

And thenceforward all summer in the 
sound of the sea. 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

And at night under the full of the moon 
in calmer weather .... 

Yes, when the stars glisten'd, 

All night long on the prong of a moss- 

scallop'd stake, 
Down, almost amid the slapping waves. 
Sat the lone singer wonderful causing tears 



I, with bare feet, a child, the wind wafting 
my hair, 

Listen'd long and long 

(Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking.) 

But now the Staflford family were assembled 
at breakfast and Walt limped in to join them. 
Courteously and simply he greeted the various 
members of the household, — the dark, silent, 
diligent Methodist father, — the spiritually- 
minded yet busy-handed mother, — the two 
young fellows, the married daughter and her 
little ones. He was the most domesticated, 
least troublesome of inmates, and his ** large 
sweet presence" imparted something to the 
homely breakfast-table, something of benignity 
and tranquillity, which it had lacked before his 
entrance. **The best man I ever knew," Mrs. 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

Stafford called him. Her sons adored him ; 
and her grandchildren were almost like his 
own, in the love and confidence with which 
they curled themselves upon his great grey 
knee when the meal was over. For his affection 
for children, his sense of fatherhood, was a 
predominant trait of Whitman's character. 
Lonely, since his mother's death, he had lived 
as regards the closer human relationships : 
lonely, in this sense, he was doomed to remain. 
A veil of secrecy hung over his past life, which 
none had ever ventured to lift. Rumours of a 
lost mate, as in the song of the Alabama bird 
upon the shore, — of children whom he never 
could claim, — hints of harsh fates and imperious 
destinies, occasionally penetrated that close- 
woven curtain of silence which covered his 
most intimate self. But only in his poems had 
he voiced his loneliness, and that with the 
tenderest poignancy of yearning for * * better, 
loftier love's ideals, the divine wife, the sweet, 
eternal, perfect comrade" 

That woman who passionately clung to me. 
Again we wander, we love, we separate 
again. 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

Again she holds me by the hand, I must 

not go, 
I see her close beside me with silent lips 

sad and tremulous. 



(Be not impatient — a little space — Know you, I 
salute the air, the ocean and the land. 

Every day, at sundown, for your dear sake, 
my love.) 

And this was the man who had been blamed 
for his utter lack of ** the romantic attitude 
towards women ! '* But Whitman was no light 
singer of casual empty love-lyrics ; he was of 
sterner stuff than that. 

No dainty dolce affettuoso I, 
Bearded, sun-burnt, gray-neck'd, forbidding, 
I have arrived. 



As breakfast passed, he spoke but little to 
his companions. His ordinary mood of ** quiet 
yet cheerful serenity," lay gently on him, and he 
was content to sit almost silent, emanating that 



I, with bare feet, a child, the wind wafting my hair, 
Listen'd long and long. . . . , . 

(Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking), 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

radiant power, that ** effluence and inclusiveness 
as of the sun," which none could fail to note in him. 
When addressed, he only replied with the brief 
monosyllable **Ay? Ay?" (which he pro- 
nounced OyP OyP)i and which, slightly in- 
flected to answer various purposes, served him 
for all response. 

The meal was not yet over, for most of the 
family, when Whitman, rising abruptly with 
that startling brusquerie which occasionally 
offended his friends, observed **Ta-ta!" to 
everybody in general and departed — * * as if he 
didn't care if he never saw us again ! " remarked 
one of the young men. He left the house and 
strolled down the green lane, to a wide wooded 
hollow, where the stream called Timber Greek 
went winding among its lily-leaves beneath the 
trees. Here Whitman had found, a year 
before, ** a particularly secluded little dell off 
one side by my creek .... filled with bushes, 
trees, grass, a group of willows, a straggling 
bank and a spring of delicious water running 
right through the middle of it, with two or 
three little cascades. Here (he) retreated every 
hot day" (Specimen Days), — and here, while the 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

summer sun drew sweet aromatic odours from 
the tangled water-mints and cresses, he pro- 
ceeded slowly now, carrying a portable chair, 
and with his pockets filled with note-books ; for, 
as he truly avowed, *' Wherever I go, winter or 
summer, city or country, alone at home or 
travelling, I must take notes." He was about 
to make sure of a morning's unmitigated delight, 
— in the spot where he sought, ** every day, 
seclusion — every day at least two or three hours 
of freedom, bathing, no talk, no bonds, no 
dress, no books, no manners." 

And each step of the way was a pure joy 
to him. **What a day! " he murmured, "what 
an hour just passing ! the luxury of riant grass 
and blowing breeze, with all the shows of sun 
and sky and perfect temperature, never before 
so filling me body and soul ! " So rhapsodizing 
inwardly and drinking in the beauty of sight 
and sound, he proceeded, *' still sauntering on, 
to the spring under the willows — musical as soft 
clinking glasses — pouring a sizeable stream, pure 
and clear, out from its vent where the bank 
arches over like a great brown shaggy eyebrow 
or mouth-roof— gurgling, gurgling ceaselessly ; 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

meaning, saying something, of course (if one 
could only translate it.) " {Specimen Days.) 

Here he sat down awhile and revelled in 
sheer joy of summer opulence. He enumerated 
to himself, — laying a store of lovely recollections 
for future reference in darker days, — *'The 
fervent heat, but so much more endurable in 
this pure air — the white and pink pond-blossoms, 
with great heart-shaped leaves, the glassy 
waters of the creek, the banks, with dense 
bushery and the picturesque beeches and shade 
and turf; the tremulous, reedy call of some 
bird from recesses, breaking the warm, indolent, 
half-voluptuous silence : the prevailing delicate, 
yet palpable, spicy, grassy, clovery perfume to 
my nostrils, — and over all, encircling all, to my 
sight and soul, the free space of the sky, trans- 
parent and blue," {Specimen Days,) and, *'from 
old habit, pencilled down from time to time, 
almost automatically, moods, sights, hours, tints 
and outlines, on the spot." Minutes like these 
were the seed time of his art, if that can be 
called art which was almost one with Nature. 
For Walt Whitman had, from the very outset, 
striven to obtain that fusion of identity with 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

Natura Benigna, which, even if only momentary, 
bequeathes a lasting impression on the mind. 
He had always felt, with regard to his pro- 
ductions, that ** There is a humiliating lesson 
one learns, in serene hours, of a fine day or 
night. Nature seems to look on all fixed-up 
poetry and art as something almost impertinent. 
. . . If I could indirectly show that we have 
met and fused, even if but only once, but enough 

— that we have really absorbed each other 
and understood each other," — it sufficed him. 
Nothing less did : for he recognised that ** after 
you have exhausted what there is in business, 
politics, conviviality, love and so on — have 
found that none of these finally satisfy, or per- 
manently wear — what remains ? Nature 
remains : to bring out from their torpid 
recesses, the affinities of a man or woman with 
the open air, the trees, fields, changes of seasons 

— the sun by day and the stars of heaven by 
night." And, while confessing, " I cannot divest 
my appetite of literature, yet I find myself 
eventually trying it all by Nature— ^rs^ premises 
many call it, but really the crowning results of 
all, laws, tallies and proofs .... I have 
fancied the ocean and the dayHght, the mountain 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

and the forest, putting their spirit in a judgment 
on our books. I have fancied some disem- 
bodied soul giving its verdict." {Specimen Days.) 
He was **so afraid," as he phrased it, ** of drop- 
ping what smack of outdoors or sun or starHght 
might cling to the lines — I dared not try to 
meddle with or smooth them," To be **made 
one with Nature," in a deeper sense than ever 
any man yet had known, was, in short, his 
ideal, — -and, one may say, his achievement. For 
the verdict of the average person, vacant of 
his glorious gains, he did not care. Regardless 
of ridicule, calumny, contumely, he had pursued 
his own way to his own goal : till he was able at 
last to realize his dream of 

Me imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature, 
Master of all, or mistress of all — aplomb in 
the midst of irrational things. 

And now he was an old man, to look upon, 
— yet a man surcharged with electric vigour 
aad daily renewing his physical strength from 
the fountains of eternal youth. He was just 
as full of elan, of enterprise, of the glorious 
hunger for adventure, as when first he had 
proclaimed, — 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open 

road, 
Healthy, free, the world before me. 
The long brown path before me, leading 

wherever I choose. 

Allons ! to that which is endless, as it was 

beginningless, 
To undergo much, tramps of days, rests 

of nights. 
To merge all in the travel they tend to, 

and the days and nights they tend to, 
Again to merge them in the start of 

superior journeys ; 
To see nothing anywhere but what you 

may reach it and pass it. 
To look up or down no road but it stretches 

and waits for you — however long, but 

it stretches and waits for you ; 
To see no being, not God's or any, but you 

also go thither. 

{Song of the Open Road.} 



The big grey man expanded almost visibly 
in the sun-steeped air, as he absorbed the 
exquisite minutiae of the green dell into his 



THE LUMBERMEN'S CAMP, 

Lumbermen in their winter camp, day-break in the 

woods, stripes of snow on the limbs of trees, the 

occasional snapping. 
The glad clear sound of one's own voice, the merry 

song, the natural life of the woods, the strong 

day's work, 
The blazing fire at night, the sweet taste of supper, 

the talk, the bed of hemlock boughs, and the 

bear-skin. 

(Song of the Broad- Axe), 




wr^w^ 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

mind, and assimilated the music of the wind and 
stream. Sound of any sort had a powerfully 
emotional effect upon him. It was not mere * 
fancy on Whitman's part that ** he and Wagner 
made one music." With music on the most colossal 
scale his poems are fraught from end to end : 
and while their technical form may be less 
finished, less perfected, than those of other 
authors, — while they have less melody, they 
have the multitudinous harmony, the superb 
architectonics, the choral and symphonic 
movement of the noblest masters. **Such 
poems as The Mystic Trumpeter, Out of the Cradle, 
Passage to India, have the genesis and exodus 
of great musical compositions." And to many 
auditors, the **vast elemental sympathy" of 
this unique personality can only be compared 
to that of Beethoven, whom he said he had 
** discovered as a new meaning in music:" 
Beethoven, by whom he allowed he **had been 
carried out of himself, seeing, hearing wonders :" 
Beethoven, who, like himself, sought inspiration 
continuously in the magic and mystery of 
Nature. 

And thus, all Whitman's finest poems have 
a processional air, like the evolution of some 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

great symphony — a pageantry of sound, so to 
speak, which whirls one forward like a leaf 
upon a resistless stream. Sometimes he is 
superbly triumphant, as in his inaugural ^,Song 
of Myself: 

With music strong I come — with my cornets 

and my drums, 
I play not marches for accepted victors 

only, 
I play great marches for conquer'd and slain 

persons. 

Sometimes he translates the sonorities of 
the air into immortal effluences of meaning : 
Hark, some wild trumpeter — some strange 

musician. 
Hovering unseen in air, vibrates capricious 

tunes to-night 

Blow, trumpeter, free and clear — I follow 

thee. 
While at thy liquid prelude, glad, serene. 
The fretting world, the streets, the noisy 

hours of day, withdraw ; 

or he blends all sorts and conditions of beautiful 
resonance into, surely, the strangest yet loveliest 
love-song ever yet set down : 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

I heard you, solemn-sweet pipes of the organ, 
as last Sunday morn I pass'd the church. 

Winds of autumn, as I walked the woods at 
dusk, I heard your long-stretch'd sighs 
up above so mournful, 

I heard the perfect Italian tenor singing at 
the opera, I heard the soprano in the 
midst of the quartet singing ; 

Heart of my love ! you too I heard mur- 
muring low through one of the wrists 
around my head. 

Heard the pulse of you, when all was still, 
ringing little bells last night under 
my ear. 

But now the precious hour had arrived, 
which to Whitman spelt revivification and 
rejuvenescence above all others : the time when, 
stripped of all externals, he became the very 
child of Mother Earth. In his own description 
of the process : 

**A light south-west wind was blowing 
through the tree-tops. It was just the place 

and time for my Adamic air-bath So, 

hanging clothes on a rail near by, keeping old 
broadbrim straw on head and easy shoes on feet 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

then partially bathing in the clear 

waters of the running brook — taking everything 
very leisurely, with many rests and pauses . . 
. . slow negligent promenades on the turf up 
and down in the sun . . . somehow I seemed 
to get identity with each and everything around 
me, in its condition. Perhaps the inner, never- 
lost rapport we hold with earth, light, air, trees, 
etc., is not to be realized through eyes and mind 
only, but through the whole corporeal body." 
{Specimen Days*) 

Power and joy and exhilaration infused his 
whole frame. ** Here," he murmured, ** I 
realize the meaning of that old fellow who said 
he was seldom less alone than when alone. 
Never before did I get so close to Nature : 
never before did she come so close to me." 

And a miracle of transient transformation 
had been wrought upon him. His youth was 
** renewed like the eagle's," his lameness 
hardly perceptible, as he reluctantly emerged 
from the sweet water, and, having dried 
himself in the sun-glow, still more reluctantly 
dressed again. This was no longer the 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

** battered, wrecked old man," the veteran of 
life-long battles with the world : but one who 
could realize with keenest perception every 
sensation of stalwart strength. He might have 
been, at this moment, one of his own ** lumber- 
men in their winter camp," enjoying 

Day-break in the woods, 
stripes of snow on the limbs of trees, 
the occasional snapping. 

The glad clear sound of one's own voice, 
the merry song, the natural life of the 
woods, the strong day's work. 

The blazing fire at night, the sweet taste of 
supper, the talk, the bed of hemlock 
boughs, and the bear-skin. 

(^Song of the Broad- Axe.) 



or a scion of the ** youthful sinewy races," 
whom he had chanted in Pioneers : 

Come, my tan-faced children. 
Follow well in order, get your weapons 
ready ; 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

Have you your pistols ? have you your 
sharpedged axes ? 

Pioneers ! O pioneers ! . . . 

All the past we leave behind ! 
We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, 

varied world ; 
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world 
of labour and the march. 
Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 

Here at last was the true Walt Whitman, 
superabundant in splendid vitality and conscious 
of mental and physical power through every 
fibre of his being. 

One last longing, loving look he cast upon 
the creek before returning homewards. The 
magnificent mid-noon lay full-tide over all, 
brimming the uttermost shores of beauty : it 
was the very apotheosis of summer, the tangible 
realization of Whitman's prophetic vision. 

All, all for immortality. 

Love like the light silently wrapping all. 

Nature's amelioration blessing all. 



THE PIONEERS. 

All the past we leave behind ! 
We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, .... 

Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains 
steep. . . 

Pioneers ! O Pioneers ! 

{Pioneers.) 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

The blossoms, fruits of ages, orchards divine 

and certain, 
Forms, objects, growths, humanities, to 

spiritual images ripening. 
Give me, O God, to sing that thought. 
Give me, give him or her I love this 

quenchless faith. 
In Thy ensemble, whatever else withheld 

withhold not from us 
Belief in plan of Thee enclosed in Time 

and Space, 
Health, peace, salvation universal. 

Is it a dream ? 

Nay but the lack of it the dream. 

And failing it life's lore and wealth a dream, 

And all the world a dream. 



Now he passed back up the lane to the 
little farmstead, and, entering in, found the 
midday meal was served. Mr. Stafford was 
already seated and about to say grace. Whit- 
man stopped as he passed behind the farmer's 
chair, and clasping Stafford's head in his large. 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

well-formed hands, became an actual part, as it 
were, in the benediction. Then he took his 
seat in silence. But that irrepressible joyous- 
ness which sometimes, after working on a 
manuscript, seemed to shine from his face and 
pervade his whole body, — that "singular bright- 
ness and delight, as though he had partaken of 
some divine elixir" — was visible now upon his 
noble features. He talked a little, in simple 
homely phrases, — giving little idea of the 
voluminous reserve force within him : telling 
little incidents of the War of Secession and 
anecdotes of his hospital experiences. He had 
been a volunteer nurse of exquisite patience 
and admirable efficiency throughout those 
terrible years 1862-64. His passionate tender- 
ness and sympathy then found vent : and he 
gave his best and uttermost : believing that (in 
his own words) * * these libations, extatic life- 
pourings, as it were, of precious wine or rose- 
water on vast desert-sands or great polluted 
rivers, taking chances of no return^ — what are 
they but the theory and practice .... of 
Christ or of all divine personality?" For in the 
human, however defaced, he still could discern 
the divine and immortal. The worth of every 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

individual soul was the pivot of all his arts and 
beliefs : 

''Because, having looked at the objects of 
the Universe, I find there is no one, nor any 
particle of one, but has reference to the soul." 

Usually, to his sensitive mind, able as it 
was to realise with the keenest sympathy 
every phase of human sufi'ering, the memories 
of carnage were repulsive. By day he could 
shut them oflF : but by night, he said, 

In clouds descending, in midnight sleep, of 

many a face in battle. 
Of the look at first of the mortally wounded, 

of that indescribable look. 
Of the dead on their backs, with arms 
extended wide — 

I dream, I dream, I dream. 

{Old War Dreams.^ 

But he had faith in the future of his 
country, vast hopes in the purification wrought 
out by those sorrowful years : and his poem 
To the Man-of'War Bird was but one of many 
allegories in which he saw his beloved America 
rising transfigured from the ashes of the past. 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

Thou who hast slept all night upon the 

storm, 
Waking renew'd on thy prodigious pinions, 
(Burst the wild storm ? above it thou 

ascended'st, 
And rested on the sky, thy slave that 

cradled thee,) .... 

Thou born to match the gale, (thou art 

all wings,) 
To cope with heaven and earth and sea and 

hurricane. 
Thou ship of air that never furl'st thy sails. 
Days, even weeks untired and onward, 

through spaces, realms gyrating. 
At dusk that look'st on Senegal, at morn 

America, 
That sport'st amid the lightning-flash and 

thunder-cloud. 
In them, in thy experiences, had'st thou 

my soul. 
What joys ! what joys were thine ! 

and out of the smoke and din of conflict, he 
believed, should spring ** the most splendid race 
the sun ever shone upon," knit in sublime unity 
of brotherhood. 



^'-A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 






|Sk Dinner over, Whitman retired awhile to 
his own apartment : that fearful chaos of pell- 
mell untidiness which was the delight of its 
occupant and the despair of Mrs. Stafford. An 
'S ^ indescribable confusion it was of letters, news- 
. papers and books, — an inkbottle on one chair, 
_ . r a glass of lemonade on another, a pile of MSS. 
%^. ;^ on a third, a hat on the floor. . . . Imper- 
^ ,^ 4 turbably composed, the poet surveyed his 
S best-loved books, — Scott, Garlyle, Tennyson, 
Emerson, — translations of Homer, Dante, 
Hafiz, Saadi : renderings of Virgil, Epictetus, 
Marcus Aurelius, — versions of Spanish and 
German poets : most well-worn of all, Shake- 
speare and the Bible. Finally, put of the 
heterogeneous collection he selected George 
Sand's Consuelo and seated himself at the 
window with it. On another afternoon he 
would have returned to the creek, but to-day 
he was expecting a friend. 

And friends, with him, did not mean mere 
acquaintances : still less those visitors who were 
brought by vulgar curiosity. Although the best 
of comrades and one who found companionship 
most exhilarating, he had a bed-rock of deep 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

reserve, and '*to such as he did not like, he 
became as a precipice." But to those with 
whom he was truly en rapport, — whether by 
letter or in the flesh, — he was spendthrift of his 
personality. His English literary friends, — 
Tennyson, Rossetti, Buchanan, Browning and 
others, had supplied the financial aid which 
enabled him to recuperate at Timber Creek : 
compatriots such as Emerson, John Burroughs, 
and a host of old-time friends were welcome 
visitors. But nothing in his life or in his 
literary fortunes, he declared, had brought 
him more comfort and support — nothing had 
more spiritually soothed him — than the ** warm 
appreciation and friendship of that true full- 
grown woman," Anne Gilchrist, the sweet 
English widow who was now staying with her 
children in Philadelphia, to be within easy reach 
of Whitman. * * Among the perfect women I have 
known (and it has been very unspeakable good 
fortune to have had the very best for mother, 
sisters and friends), I have known none more 
perfect," wrote the poet, **than my dear, dear 
friend, Anne Gilchrist." It was this warm- 
hearted, courageous Englishwoman, '* alive with 
humour and vivacity," whose musical voice was 



THE MAN-OF-WAR BIRD. 

Thou born to match the gale, (thou art all wings,) 
To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane, 
Thou ship of air that never furl'st thy sails, 
Days, even weeks untired and onward, through spaces, 

realms gyrating, 
At dusk that look'st on Senegal, at morn America, 
That sport'st amid the lightning-flash and thunder- 
cloud. 
In them, in thy experiences, had'st thou my soul, 
What joys ! what joys were thine ! 

(To the Man-of- War Bird.) 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

shortly heard outside, enquiring for Walt. He 
hastened down to receive her. 

Anne Gilchrist's opinion of Whitman was 
even more enthusiastic than his appreciation of 
her. She admired and revered the courage 
with which he expounded his theories of life, 
no less than the expression of them in words 
which, as she put it, ceased to be words and 
became electric streams. **What more can 
you ask of the words of a man's mouth," she 
exclaimed, **than that they should absorb into 
you as food and air, to reappear again in your 
strength, gait, face — that they should be fibre 
and filter to your blood, joy and gladness to 
your whole nature? " She alone, of all women, 
and almost alone among men, had stood forth 
to defend him for the ** fearless and compre- 
hensive dealing with reality " which had 
alienated the conventional and ofiended the 
prudish — and she alone was the recipient, now, 
of his most intimate thoughts and aspirations. 

They sat together on the shady piazza, and 
he unfolded to her, while her children played 
around, the hopes and wishes of his heart not 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

only for America but for all humanity. He 
said, **My original idea was that if I could 
bring men together by putting before them the 
heart of man with all its joys and sorrows and 
experiences and surroundings, it would be a 

great thing I have endeavoured from 

the first to get free as much as possible from all 
literary attitudinism — to strip off integuments, 
coverings, bridges — and to speak straight from 
and to the heart ; ... to discard all conven- 
tional poetic phrases, and every touch of or 
reference to ancient or mediaeval images, 
metaphors, subjects, styles, etc., and to write 
de novo with words and phrases appropriate to 
our own days." He took her hand as he spoke, 
as was his wont with a sympathetic listener, and 
gazed with eagerness into her serious yet easily- 
lighted face. His * * terrible blaze of personality " 
was subdued for the nonce into that child-like 
simplicity, that woman-like tenderness, which 
constituted some of his chief charms. 

They discussed the work of contemporary 
poets, English and American. Whitman, 
however much he differed from these in theory 
and method, gave generous homage to their 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

varied genius. He loved to declaim the Ulysses 
and kindred majestically-rolling passages of 
Tennyson, in a clear, strong, rugged tone, 
devoid of all elocutionary tricks or affectation. 
He never spoke a line of his own verse, but to 
recite from Shakespeare was a great pleasure 
to him : and he compared the Shakespearean 
plays to large, rich, splendid tapestry, like 
Raffaelle's historical cartoons, where everything 
is broad and colossal. For Scott, whose work, 
he said, breathed more of the open air than the 
workshop, he had unfeigned admiration. 
Dramatic work and music in all its forms 
he discussed with knowledge and fervour. As 
for the poets of America, he poured encomium 
upon them ungrudgingly. ** I can't imagine 
any better luck befalling these States for a 
poetical beginning and initiation than has 
come from Emerson, Longfellow, Bryant and 
Whittier." (Specimen Days.} 

The afternoon shadows stretched them- 
selves out, and at sunset Mrs. Gilchrist and her 
children departed. It had been for her a 
memorable afternoon : and Whitman had been 
thoroughly in his element as comrade of so 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

congenial a soul. Now, as the twilight deepened, 
he devoted himself to the consideration of the 
deepest notes in the whole diapason of human 
existence. Never was a man of more exuberant 
a joy in life : never one who gazed more courage- 
ously into the dim-veiled face of Death, — the 
sower of all enigmas, the comforter of all pain. 

Whispers of heavenly death, murmur'd 

I hear ; 
Labial gossip of night — sibilant chorals ; 
Footsteps gently ascending — mystical 

breezes, wafted soft and low, . . . 

(Did you think Life was so well provided 
for — and Death, the purport of all Life, 
is not well provided for ? ) . . . 

I do not doubt that whatever can possibly 
happen, any where, at any time, is pro- 
vided for, in the inherences of things ; 

I do not think Life provides for all, and for 
Time and Space — but I believe Heavenly 
Death provides for all. 

{Whispers of Heavenly Death.) 

And his heart once more, as in the match- 
less threnody for Lincoln, When Lilacs last in the 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

dooryard bloomed, uttered its song of summons 
and of welcome. 

Come, lovely and soothing Death, 
Undulate round the world, serenely arriv- 
ing, arriving. 
In the day, in the night, to all, to each. 
Sooner or later, delicate Death. . . . 

Dark Mother, always gliding near, with 

soft feet. 
Have none chanted for thee a chant of 

fullest welcome ? 
Then I chant it for thee — I glorify thee 

above all. 

The skies deepened into purple, and the 
march of the stars began : it was the sacredest 
hour of the day to Whitman, a period con- 
secrated and set apart above all. " I am 
convinced," thought he, "that there are hours 
of Nature, especially of the atmosphere, 
mornings and evenings, addressed to the soul. 
Night transcends, for that purpose, what the 
proudest day can do." {Specimen Days.) 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

And a new buoyancy quickened in his soul ; 
the indomitable spirit of enterprise revived 
within him. Now, at eleven at night, he was 
more exhilarated in mind than his body had 
been in the blue July morning : and, casting 
one comprehensive glance upon the burning 
arcana of the heavens, that he might carry into 
his sleep a memory of that glory, he ** desired 
a better country," with longing and deep 
solicitude. 

Bathe me, O God, in Thee, mounting 

to Thee, 
I and my soul to range in range of Thee ! 



Passage to more than India ! 

O secret of the earth and sky ! 

Of you, O waters of the sea ! O winding 

creeks and rivers ! 
Of you, O woods and fields ! Of you, strong 

mountains of my land ! 
Of you, O prairies ! Of you, gray rocks ! 
O morning red ! O clouds! O rain and snows! 
O day and night, passage to you ! 



A DAY WITH WALT WHITMAN. 

O sun and moon, and all you stars ! Sirius 

and Jupiter ! 
Passage to you ! . . . 

O my brave soul ! 

O farther, farther sail ! 

O daring joy, but safe ! Are they not all 

the seas of God ? 
O farther, farther, farther sail ! 

{Passage to India.} 



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Bradford and London. 4887 





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